Technology and methods

Whitehead Institute has received three grants from the Massachusetts Life Sciences Center to add advanced instruments to its Innovation Centers, strengthening shared resources that help scientists sort rare cells, image molecules inside cells, and measure and map the physical connections among proteins.

Certain human cells can be made to manufacture virus-like particles that deliver gene editing tools – including potential therapies – into target cells. By modifying these producer cells, Valhalla Fellow at Whitehead Institute Aditya Raguram and colleagues engineered particles that are up to nine times more potent.

Whitehead Institute's Innovation Centers are a source of research services and much more, including potent collaborators and thought-partners. Graduate student Pushkal Sharma in Whitehead Institute Member Ankur Jain’s lab learned this firsthand by working with Heather Keys, the director of the Functional Genomics Platform, on research into small molecules called polyamines.

Jonathan Weissman and colleagues developed an optogenetic approach to study where in the cell proteins get made and used it to characterize two groups of proteins produced next to mitochondria. This could lead to new insights into mitochondrial function and dysfunction in disease.

Whitehead Institute Member Jonathan Weissman and colleagues have developed a tool that can recreate cells’ family trees. By comparing the cells’ lineages to where they end up within a tumor, the researchers have gained new insights into how inherited and environmental factors shape tumor growth.

Whitehead Institute Member Jonathan Weissman and colleagues, together with collaborators in Xiaowei Zhuang’s laboratory at Harvard University, developed an approach to collect multiple types of imaging and sequencing data from the same set of cells in animals, leading to new insights into liver biology in mice.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is part of everyday life and has innumerable uses — from summarizing a book or designing a poster, to recommending a TV show or parking your car. But how can AI be useful in biology? In this video narrated by Whitehead Institute Member Rick Young, learn how scientists are taking advantage of AI to greatly accelerate biological discoveries.

Valhalla Fellow Lindsey Backman explains what the microbiome is and the roles that different members of our microbiomes play in health and disease. She also discusses how her lab studies adaptations that some microbes have evolved to tolerate oxygen-containing environments, and how researchers may be able to use what she learns to create better antibiotics and probiotics.